Thicker Than Water
by MoreQuirkyThanJuno
Summary: A female pack arrives in La Push hunting down a rouge vampire. Chemistry sparks between werewolves but, so does fear and prejudice. Alphas will have to decide between war and peace. Co-written by Arlie and MoreQuirkyThanJuno.
1. Chapter 1

That bitch. Just had to keep running, didn't she? Luckily, our pack was on her trail. Well, lucky for us. Not for her.

Sydney was in the lead, chasing the rotten, stinking vampire, the white skin and black hair of if contrasting with the forest. We called her Skunk.

I'm Hazel, by the way. The Beta to Sydney's Alpha. The peanut butter to her marshmallow fluff. And behind me were the other members, Ellie, Rebecca, and Candice.

I put my focus back on Skunk, the stupid murderer. She probably hadn't expected werewolves in our hometown. She had already made on kill. She wouldn't make another. Not on my watch.

Anyway, we chased the leech where the trees thinned, the river's edge, but we knew that even the water, as deep and wide as it was, wouldn't faze her. I sped up a little, to catch up to Sydney, but by the time I got there, Skunk had swiftly, beautifully vaulted herself across.

Taking one look around, Sydney thought of a plan. That was just one of the quirks that came with the Sydney Package.

_That tree. Rebecca._ She thought, using the weird mind-talk that us werewolves shared to direct Rebecca to the nearest, strong looking pine. Rebecca ran over to it and pushed it down with her wolf strength, though to tell the truth, the human Rebecca couldn't even have pulled a weed. The tree groaned and cracked as it fell over, just barely reaching the other side. We all crossed as quickly as we could, picked up Skunk's nauseating, sickly sweet smell, and started after her.

This time we chased her into a clearing of trees. I think that we were somewhere in Washington by now, near Seattle. Damn, that Skunk sure did give us a run for our money.

_Circle,_ came the command, from the Alpha, of course, and Ellie and I, the fastest in the pack, rushed ahead.

_Hellz yeah, we got her now!_ I shouted in my head, barking with Sydney's woof of approvement. But before Sydney could issue a plan, Candice acted on her own, sudden impulse. Bitch!

_I heard that,_ Candice growled, aiming straight for Skunk's throat.

_No Candice! St-,_ Sydney started but was cut off by a sharp, loud _CRUNCH!_ as Skunk turned at the last millisecond and crushed Candice's shoulder with a swat of her hand. Oh, snap.

With a shriek of pain, Candice fell to the ground and curled into a ball. Skunk, satisfied with her blow, shot Sydney a quick, sly smile before disappearing back into the copse of trees. Funny, it seemed like Skunk was doing this for amusement. I was going to kill her.

_NO!_ Ellie screeched, and started after the troublesome bloodsucker.

_Stop, everyone!_ Sydney ordered. Ellie fell back and sat on her haunches, let her tongue out, and whimpered. _Ellie, she's too far ahead and your pack sister is wounded. We need to stick together_. If Skunk had turned around and found you alone, you would be dead.

_It's her own dumb fault, _I thought, looking at Candice, openly blaming her for our loss.

_I want to rest anyway. We've been running for six days straight,_ Rebecca added, _I'm pooped_.

_Um, still in pain here! _Candice panted, trying to not show how hurt she was that we had forgotten her for a second.

_Shut up! Everyone, phase back! _Sydney said.

There was a flash of heat as I pulled my wolf-self back in, as I watched my muddy brown fur fall away and felt my arms shift back into place. Everything felt all tingly, like it always did phasing back to human form. Soon everyone was standing around, buck naked. Trying not to look at the others, I pulled the cord around my arm and let my dingy clothes fall to the ground. They were all I had to remind me of home. I shuddered as I pulled them on.

I stole a glance at Candice's shoulder as Rebecca went to invest, the nerd. The blood had already stopped, but it was up to Rebecca for the real deal, since she was the smartest, gentlest, and most sane and most patient in our group.

"What's up, doc?" Ellie asked, trying to sound like Bugs Bunny, though if you ask me, she sounded more like a duck with a nose bleed. Her sing-song voice rang out, filled with giggles and a touch of worry. Just a touch, though. Not enough to keep Candice from glaring at her. Ellie was never serious enough to keep Candice from glaring.

"Well," Rebecca sighed, as if she had done this a hundred times before, which she had, "It's definitely broken."

"Ya think?" sarcasm dripped from Candice's tone a she pulled her hurt shoulder away from the minor.

Rebecca ignored the snide comment. "Even in wolf-healing time, it'll take a few days before she can phase again."

A look of stress and frustration, something only I could detect, passed over Sydney's face before she said, "We'll just rest here for a while. Hazel, do you know where we are?"

"La Push, Washington, I think." I replied.

_La push_, I thought, _there's probably a town next to it called El Shove. _I grinned as we set out to make camp for the night.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hi everybody! This is a new fanfic I' doing with my friend arlie. The first chapter was Hazel's point of view which arlie will be doing and I'll be doing Sydney's POV. Enjoy!

Spov

The putrid smell of blood and vampire overcame my nose. I would have probably lied down and barfed if it wasn't my duty to keep going.

Honor. Duty. Family. That was why we were here. This is what we fought for. It defined us.

The beautiful raven-haired monster leapt over the hundred meter wide river in a single jump with the grace of a jungle cat.

We had been tracking her for miles but she had a unique talent for evasion and it was frustrating when she kept slipping through our paws.

With her ivory skin, night black hair, and foul smell we had jokingly nicknamed her skunk.

Wolves hunting a skunk. Easy right? Wrong!

We had chased her all the way to Washington State and she still wouldn't give up.

Rebecca pushed down a massive tree three times as long as her whole body and we used the trunk as a bridge. With our grace and speed we got across the river easily and quickly.

When we reached the other side Skunk didn't anticipate our moves and moving as one mind we surrounded her.

Rebecca and Ellie took the North. Candice took the west. Hazel took the South and I covered the East. At last she was trapped.

"Hells Yeah! We got her now!" Hazel, my beta, barked in triumph as I woofed back.

As the alpha of the pack _I_ was the one who confirmed attacks but, Candice had other plans.

Candice jumped forward to rip out skunk's perfect, pale throat.

"You bitch!" Hazel thought.

"I heard that!" growled Candice.

"No, Candice! St..." but before I could make my command the vampire danced around and snapped Candice's shoulder like a twig.

"No!" Ellie thought and tried to chase after Skunk not seconds after the vampire took her time to throw me a devious look and then run away.

"Stop everyone!" I commanded in the most authortive voice I could muster.

"Ellie, she's already too far ahead and your pack sister is wounded. We need to stick together.

"It's her own dumb fault." Hazel murmured to the forest floor.

"I want to rest anyway. We've been running for six days without stopping." Rebecca implored softly.

"I'm pooped!" She added smiling in her head.

"Still in pain!" Candice whined obnoxiously.

"Shut up and phase!" I ordered.

After we had all shifted back to humans, we put on the clothes tied around our ankles and Rebecca examined Candice's shoulder for the damage.

Rebecca is the most brilliant girl I've ever met. She's quiet and shy but smart and kind. She was the tamest out of us all. Not like that's saying much.

"What's the diagnosis doc?" Ellie giggled in a joking tone with her tan hand sweeping in her long sunshine colored hair falling gently over her shoulder. It was just like Ellie to never take anything too seriously.

"Well…" Rebecca sighed.

"It's defiantly broken."

"Ya think?" Candice practically growled in her face, not uncommon.

As usual, Rebecca ignored her.

"Even in werewolf healing time, it'll take a couple of days before she can phase again."

"We'll just have to rest here for a little while." I decided.

"Hazel, where are we?"

"La Push."


	3. Chapter 3

Ellie had found a nearby cave, devoid of life. Soon there was a fire going, thanks to Rebecca's flint, and all five of us sat around it, the orange glow lighting up our faces. The scene wasn't new to us. We had spent many a night like this, hunting Skunk or just trying to escape our families where we were lost, afraid, or, like me, unwanted. The word stung as it entered my mind. I looked at my fellow sisters.

First, there was Rebecca, with her short, fox-red hair and dark blue eyes. She was very quiet and shy, though she could ace all of my senior tests any day. And even though she was fifteen, she was three inches taller than me at 5'4, the weed. If she had been my next door neighbor and had I been a boy, I would be all over her. But I'm not a boy, thank goodness, and to me, Rebecca is just a little sister.

Then there was Ellie. My god, who could forget Ellie? Was there anybody else so optimistic and encouraging? She was definitely the cheerleader type after all. She possessed the most gorgeous waist-long blonde hair and the deepest chocolate brown eyes that seemed to go on forever. I mean, with a wave of her hand she could have dozens of boys licking her shoes. And SHE was taller than me too, a whole inch taller than Rebecca!

I took a gander at Candice, who was staring intently at the dancing, flickering flames. Even with a screwed shoulder, I bet Candice could have thrown on a garbage bag, strutted down a runway, and make the covers of dozens of magazines with all the jealous models in the background. Her always super-straight , platinum blonde hair was almost as long a Ellie's, but her pale blue eyes belonged to an ice queen, as did her sharply angled face. And she was as quick-tempered as they come, even before she turned into a werewolf. Candice was very materialistic, though she currently had no materials to own. They were all at her house. Nobody knew about her background either. I've caught flashes of it from when she let her mind wander while running, but they vanished as quickly as they had appeared.

Last, but not least, definitely not least, was Sydney, who had been with me from the start. Before the start even, since practically the womb. Well, maybe I was exaggerating, but still. We were the best of friends and never really liked to be apart. And she was almost the exact opposite of me. She was smart in subjects that I wasn't, way more opinionated, headstrong, and so kind-hearted that if it was up to her, every stray animal would have a home. She was the most thoughtful and perceptive girl I knew, always looking at situations from every angle possible. I looked at the wavy, slightly curly brown hair that framed her heart-shaped face and made her big, round; leaf green eyes look innocent, as though they knew nothing of the world. Though we all know that those eyes took in everything they saw, from the common chipmunk scampering across the forest floor to boys from our high school making their way to ask her out from down the hall. Her skin was as pale as mine and her delicate build was like mine as well. But Sydney was by far the tallest. I practically had to look up at her when we talked, but I had known Sydney for so long that her height didn't bother me anymore.

And that was it. That was our pack. That was our family…my family.

Looking at how pretty we all were, I couldn't help but let out a small laugh as a thought entered my brain.

"What?" Sydney asked her face trying to hide a look of amusement as Ellie and Rebecca paused in their conversation about sugar.

"I was just thinking how damn pretty we all are and how none of us has a boyfriend."

We all started laughing at my genius comment, except Candice, whose face was a cross between rage and pain. With one look that shot daggers and axes at me, she stood up, winced a little at her shoulder, and stalked away, taking our good mood with her.

What the hell? I thought as Sydney asked her where she was going.

"Away from you." She sneered, not even stopping to say it to our faces. Bitch.

"What crawled up her butt and died?" I muttered once she was out of earshot, not even trying to be as polite and casual as Sydney had been.

"We don't know everything about her or her past. Let's just give her some time." Sydney quietly said. I shut up and went back to staring at the fire.

While Ellie and Rebecca started talking about food again and while Sydney and that awful, uncivilized mongrel settled into a silence, I turned away from the tree I was hiding behind. I couldn't believe it! Nobody had gotten up to follow me or comfort me. People always did what I wanted them to. It just wasn't fair. Fine. If they couldn't get their lazy asses up, then what did I care? I didn't, that's what.

I took off my clothes and tied them around my calf with the string I always wore around my neck. I brushed a stray tear of frustration away and phased, my long, storm-cloud grey fur sprouting, my ears elongating and turning pointy, and my fingernails sharpening and changing to ebony black. The phase irritated my shoulder, but I was still on the not-caring premises.

_Are you trying to cripple yourself? Silly Candice, _A voice echoed. I knew that if he were here, he would say that, like he had when I'd wanted to take the cast off of my broken arm. But he wasn't with me anymore. Angrier at myself than ever, I started running, inflaming my shoulder even more. I would show them. I would prove to them that Candice Shale can do everything that Sydney could, that she wasn't a useless hazard.

As if on cue, a wave of sticky vampire smell washed over me, making me gag a little. I would know that smell in my sleep. Skunk. Everything in my mind turned into a point, an arrow, and I fired it at the Skunk target in my brain. Whether it hit its mark or not would be up to me. And believe me, it would. I was going to make sure of it. Vampires had ruined my life, made me turn into what I was. A freak. I would see every last one of them destroyed. Skunk would just be the first.

_Now don't get ahead of yourself. You know that vampires are just another form of people. They can't be all bad…_ There it was again, that pain that just wouldn't go away. Suddenly, flashes of that day forced their way into my concentration, unneeded and uncalled for. I stumbled a little, guilt crushing me, weighing me down. Tears gushed from my eyes, and I was blinded by them. I could taste bile in the back of my throat. My heart throbbed with the same tempo as my stupid shoulder.

Focus, Candice, focus. Right, I was on a mission to prove my worth. I inhaled another whiff of the burning scent. She was close. Now I was more determined than ever.

After another couple hundred miles, when my tears cleared, I could see her tiny figure, hands poised on her hips, grinning at me. She knew I was coming. But that was fine. I'd rather have it that way. Then I'd be able to see that smile slip off her face when I cunningly clawed her eyes out. I was going to relish this.

I urged my legs to move faster. Just a couple more miles until my fangs found her perfectly sculpted skull and ripped it to shreds. My shoulder was on fire, burning hotter with each move of my paw, each shift of muscle, and not functioning quite right. Too bad it was only a match to my blazing desire.

There was a far off rustling in the brush, near Skunk. She turned her head away from my approach towards the rustling and frowned. She looked back at me, as if wishing that she'd had the chance to take a swipe at me like she had earlier. She ran off in the direction I was headed, but that was okay. I was going to catch her. I had just reached where she had grinned at me not minutes, not even seconds before, when I slammed into the back of something furry and warm. And big. Very big, actually, though not as big as I was. I wouldn't have minded so much, especially if it was, say, a tanned lifeguard, and maybe if I hadn't been going a thousand miles an hour with a crappy shoulder. But I did mind.

Tearing pain seared its way across my nerve endings. I could hear myself howl, though I wasn't sure if it was from that fact that I had failed my mission or from my broken bones. How dare a dumb bear interfere!

My emotions exploded, or at least something snapped. Moving with a speed that was fueled with my anger, I raised my good arm and slashed it down, tearing through flesh. Again and again until I was pretty sure I had hit bone. I think I bit the bear a couple times, too. It shrieked and howled as I emptied my emotions through my actions. **The animal fought back, getting a good cut in every now and then. But I was a bunch of raging emotions. The bear's hits seemed puny against my own, and soon it fell, sending vibrations through the ground. **

I stopped there, blood dripping from my muzzle and wounds and claws. My anger had faded to shame and horror. The body lay at my paws. For a second I saw Jason, but I blinked and looked for real. That's when I realized that it wasn't Jason or a bear or even an abnormally large mountain cat. It was a…werewolf.

_Candice. _Sydney's voice, heavy with the power of an Alpha, moved into my head. _Candice. What have you done?_

I whined a little, terrified by **my actions. If there was** one unknown werewolf in the area, then that meant that there was a whole other pack? _Yes, Candice. Thank you for that wonderful little lesson. I'll deal with that later. Now get your ass back to camp, immediately. _

I fled the scene, knowing that even if hell waited for me when I got **back and even though my shoulder was probably unusable for the rest of my life, a**t least I would be safe…for the moment.


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N- Thanks for all the fab reviews we love you even though we don't know you personally but that's okay cause we got brownies. Sorry about all those weird inside jokes its Alex's first author's note. This is my chapter but Alex had to come over and kick my butt to get it done. I had a little bit of writers block. Sawy!!! Here's the new chap.**

**Spov**

We found a cave and started a fire but, this was not unusual for us. The pack had no home; we only traveled around the continent hunting down vamps in need of a good ass whooping. To be frank we kill anything that kills humans. We all had homes and families but we were either unwanted or happier in the pack. It was better for everyone this way. I like to think of it as an after school activity that keeps us off the streets. Except we don't go to school. Ever. Being genetic freaks does have some perks.

Each of us has a past and none a happy one.

Ellie, who always acted so charming and bubbly, did cower whenever she was reminded of her drunken abusive father.

Ellie was the type of girl you would happily vote for prom queen over the school slut and not regret it later. She was as sweet and outgoing as she was cute and perky. With waist long blonde hair and warm, melted chocolate eyes she stood tall and optimistic, ready to take on the world. Like a cheerleader, she could inspire anyone with her kind spirit and happy go lucky attitude.

It was unusual that she thought about her father, but when she did it was never a good thing. She could only be herself around us.

Before he started hitting her, when her mom was still alive, she would become friends with anyone and was so popular. After the accident she went in an emotional shell keep us all out. We didn't figure out her father became abusive until he tried to hit me one day and Ellie finally confessed. We took her away and made her feel like she had a family again. She seems like she's back to her old self but every once in a while we get a glimpse of the pain she carries with her every day.

Rebecca was everyone's little sister. Even Ellie, who is a year younger, protects her like a bodyguard.

Growing up with only a mom and bullied all her life, Becky was never very tough. Kids can really be shitty to one another. They made fun of her for being smart, short, having glasses, having freckles (which I personally think only add on to her obvious adorableness), not having a dad, you name it. She was always so vulnerable to being picked on.

But what she lacked in strength she made up for in brains.

Even as the baby of the pack she was easily the smartest. She knows strategy, animals, poisonous plants, medicine, all that good stuff you need when you're trying to survive in the forests of North America. I swear the kid's gonna win a noble peace prize in smarty pants awesomeness one day.

She also had the purest, most compassionate heart in the world. She made me so proud.

Candice, on the other hand, only thought about herself. Not that I could completely blame her. Gorgeous and hot tempered, Candice had a dreadful back story that no one would want to have.

Not that she would ever let any of us know what it is. As soon as she turned werewolf she learned how to block us out and keep her thoughts inside a private part of her mind. We could only see little tidbits, but that was most definitely enough to feel her excruciating pain.

And, then there was Hazel.

Hazel was my best friend and I adored her.

She had short choppy dark brown hair with royal purple highlights and round, indigo colored eyes that made her look beautiful and exotic. She was the shortest in the pack at 5'2 with a skinny build but looked like a rockstar's girlfriend. Not that any rockstar would be able to able to handle her crazy and sarcastic outlook on life.

Being bumped from foster home, to orphanage, to a different foster home again all her life made her strong and cynical. Hazel was brutally honest (emphasis on brutal) and never took shit from anyone. I guess that's what made her a good beta. But the hidden kindness and warmth she held made her a good friend.

These girls were not just my pack. They were my family.

Rebecca and Ellie were joking about roasting marshmallows while Candice was looking into the flames of the fire. All of the sudden Hazel let out a snort and chuckle.

"What?" I asked her knowing whatever it was I was about to be highly amused. Did I mention Hazel is _really_ sarcastic?

"Well…" She started with a smirk waiting until everyone had her attention. Always feeding to a crowd, that one. The bigger, the badder, the better.

"I was just thinking about how damn pretty we all are and how none of us has a boyfriend." Hazel giggled.

All of us burst into a fit of laughter at the ridiculous idea except Candice who gave Hazel a murderous glare, growled, and stalked off.

"Where are you going?" I asked as nonchalant as I could without growling. She didn't need to know I was frustrated with her.

"Away from you." She murmured under her breath.

"What crawled up her butt and died?" Hazel growled.

"We don't know everything that's happened in her past. Just give her a little time." I said serenely trying to take my own advice.

"She'll get us all in trouble one day." Ellie groaned unusually bitter.

"I think she might come around." Rebecca gave us all a hopeful smile.

"I bet your right, Becks." I smiled back and she beamed.

I didn't know it at the time but one of those predictions would be dangerously accurate. Try and guess which one.


End file.
